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Article

Investor Responses to Corporate Donation Frequency Strategies: The Mediating Roles of Bidirectional Motive Attributions

by
Ye Chen
1,* and
Naiding Yang
2
1
School of Economics and Management, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou 310018, China
2
School of Management, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2023, 15(21), 15392; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152115392
Submission received: 19 August 2023 / Revised: 9 September 2023 / Accepted: 15 September 2023 / Published: 28 October 2023
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Abstract

:
Corporate donation is an important business strategy, but not all donations can yield the expected positive outcomes. Thus, it is urgent to know what donation strategies firms should use to obtain positive responses from different stakeholders. By conducting two experimental studies, we explore which donation frequency strategy, one-time or multiple-time donations, drives more positive investor responses and the difference in the mediating roles of altruistic/egoistic bidirectional motive attributions. The results show that for donation projects supporting ongoing causes, a multiple-time strategy leads to investors having more positive judgments of a firm’s future earnings prospects and higher investment desirability rather than a one-time strategy because it induces more altruistic attributions. Although investors make both altruistic and egoistic attributions for both strategies, only the mediating role of altruistic attribution exists, whereas that of egoistic attribution does not. Our research contributes to the study of corporate donation strategies and corporate social responsibility (including corporate donation) motive attribution, providing valuable insights for academic research, corporate decision makers, and stakeholders invested in responsible business practices.

1. Introduction

Donating is a typical way for firms to undertake social responsibility and has become the fastest-growing type of corporate social responsibility (CSR) with global importance [1,2]. From a social perspective, corporate donations can help vulnerable groups in society and balance social welfare so as to achieve social sustainability. From a firm perspective, donations can enhance corporate reputation and build a responsible halo, which helps improve relationships with stakeholders and thereby obtain more resources to ensure corporate sustainable development. A great deal of research has shown that corporate donation can bring positive outcomes to firms, e.g., enhanced operating efficiency, increased product market, improved employee productivity, and increased capital market benefits, which will ultimately improve corporate financial performance and firm value not only in the short term but also in the long run [3]. However, in fact, not all corporate donations could generate desirable outcomes. Therefore, it is urgent to know what strategies firms should use to implement and communicate donation initiatives to achieve the desirable outcomes. Firms should carefully choose the “right” type of donation strategies.
Many studies [4,5,6,7] have explored how other stakeholders like consumers respond to different donation strategies; however, studies investigating investor responses to donation strategies are very limited. The desired positive effects of corporate donation (e.g., improved financial performance and increased firm value) actually rely on the responsive behavior of all stakeholders. As such, understanding how investors, i.e., one of the most important but less studied stakeholder groups, respond to different donation strategies is critical to the understanding of the overall effectiveness of these donation strategies.
From the perspective of donation frequency, i.e., the number of times a firm donates within a particular period of time, firms have two donation strategies to choose from. One is a small-amount-but-frequent donation strategy—i.e., multiple-time strategy—and the other is a one-time-but-large donation strategy—i.e., one-time strategy. For example, for a firm with an annual budget of CNY 10 million, it can donate the CNY 10 million all at one time (i.e., one-time strategy) or make twenty donations of CNY 500,000 each (i.e., multiple-time strategy). Whether corporate donation efforts can bring favorable financial outcomes is a result of the interaction of responsive behaviors of all stakeholders. In the field of marketing, Jin and He [5] indicate that when the total donation amount is controlled, consumers respond differently to these two donation strategies. However, it is unclear how stakeholders such as investors respond to these two strategies. Unlike consumers, investors are driven by financial motives in addition to moral motives when responding to corporate donations, and thus, their responses may be different from the responses of consumers. As such, how investors—a key stakeholder group especially for listed firms—respond to different donation frequency strategies should be examined to understand whether a specific strategy is effective as a whole—i.e., whether investors’ responses are consistent with consumers’ responses—or whether there is an offsetting effect. Determining exactly which donation strategy leads to a more positive investor response and understanding the mechanism underlying the response are significant for firms to achieve economic goals through strategic donating. Therefore, our first objective is to observe how investors respond to different corporate donation frequency strategies, i.e., the one-time or multiple-time strategy—specifically, to which frequency donation strategy do investors respond more positively.
Next, we would like to explore why investors respond as they do. We expect to have a deeper understanding of the underlying psychological processes of investors’ responses to these two donation strategies. Nowadays, people have plenty of ways to access information. As individuals have access to more information, they become more curious about the motives behind others’ behavior. References [8,9] suggest that individuals use their perceptions of the motives of others’ behaviors to form their own attitudes and responses. Guided by attribution theory, we argue that investors likely have different attributional inferences about the donation motives of different strategies, which determine their different responses.
Motive inference is a key psychological process before an individual responds to others’ behaviors [10,11]. A large body of research [12,13,14,15,16] documents that CSR (including corporate donation) motive attribution plays a role in how stakeholders such as consumers and employees respond to CSR initiatives. However, the existing literature is almost silent on the role of motive attribution in how investors respond to CSR initiatives. Therefore, our study aims to provide some insight into the psychological process of investors’ motive attribution through how they interpret and respond to different donation frequency strategies.
CSR motive attribution is a complex psychological process [1,17]. In fact, attributions induced by CSR are not simple bipolar judgments of altruistic or egoistic motives. Altruistic and egoistic attributions may coexist. Therefore, a bidirectional and parallel attribution model can be an effective way to deal with the complexities of CSR motive attribution. Some prior research regards altruistic/intrinsic and egoistic/extrinsic motives as mutually exclusive and measures motive attribution only from one direction (mostly altruistic/intrinsic attribution) when examining the role of motive attribution in stakeholder CSR responses [18,19]. Among studies considering bidirectional attributions, some people in the human resource management field find that altruistic attribution mediates employees’ responses to CSR while egoistic attribution does not [16,20]; others in the marketing field indicate that altruistic and egoistic attributions play opposite roles in their responses, suggesting that the two motives are perceived as mutually exclusive by consumers [15,21]. However, it remains unclear how bidirectional attributions affect investors’ CSR responses. Hence, we put forth a mediation model that shows how one-time and multiple-time donation strategies influence investors’ bidirectional motive attributions—i.e., altruistic and egoistic—and, ultimately, their responses.
In this paper, the judgment of future earnings prospects, specifically earnings per share (EPS), is used to measure investor response because earnings are the key indicator of a firm’s future prospects [22,23] and the core factor determining investor judgments and decision making. Please note that the donation initiatives we focus on in this paper are those supporting an ongoing cause (e.g., education improvement, healthcare improvement, and poverty alleviation) rather than a disaster cause (e.g., disaster mitigation and disaster relief) because this type of donation accounts for the vast majority of corporate donations in China. According to the Giving China 2018 Annual Report [24], donations supporting ongoing causes account for approximately 75%, while donations that support disaster causes account for only less than 2%.
This paper makes several contributions. First, this paper extends the research on corporate donation strategy by revealing the underlying mechanism of the donation frequency strategy from the perspective of investors. Prior research has paid little attention to how investors respond to different corporate donation strategies and has mostly focused on consumers. However, the success of CSR strategies depends on the responsive behavior of all stakeholders. The responses of different stakeholders may be inconsistent, thereby resulting in an offsetting effect. Our study investigates how investors respond to corporate donation frequency and finds that the donation frequency strategy determines investors’ motive attributions, which in turn influence investors’ judgments of future earnings prospects and investment desirability. Understanding this underlying mechanism is important since it can guide firms in developing future donation strategies and justify their charitable expenditures.
Second, this paper contributes to the bidirectional attribution measurement model of CSR motive attributions by extending its application to examine how investors respond to CSR—here, corporate donation. Prior studies rarely focus on the role of motivational attribution, a key psychological process, in investors’ CSR responses. The work of Stuart et al. [25] and that of Chen and Yang [26] are exceptions. Although both works investigate how investors react to different motive attributions, e.g., altruistic, win-win, and egoistic, they only consider from a single motive attribution perspective but rather from an altruistic/egoistic bidirectional attribution perspective. In fact, CSR motive attribution is a complex psychological process and is not a simple bipolar judgement of altruistic or egoistic motive [1,17]. Altruistic attribution and egoistic attribution may coexist. Thus, considering the impact of one attribution alone is not enough to clearly explain the role of motive attribution in investor responses to corporate donation. Specifically, we find asymmetric mediating roles of altruistic and egoistic attributions in investor responses to corporate donation frequency strategies. Altruistic attribution plays a mediating role, whereas egoistic attribution does not; though donation frequency strategies do affect investors’ egoistic attributions, investors do not respond negatively to egoistic attributions. These findings reflect the independent working mechanisms of altruistic/egoistic bidirectional attributions, and investors’ preference for altruistic motives and tolerance of egoistic motives. Unlike consumers, investors and employees are firm insiders who are also driven by financial returns that are closely related to the donating firm’s financial performance, therefore they are more tolerant and acceptable of egoistic motives.
Third, this paper identifies an effective way for firms to implement and communicate donation initiatives to obtain desirable investor responses. Given the consensus that donation investments pay off [3,27,28], the question left behind is how firms should implement and communicate donation initiatives and what is the best way to make donation efforts count. We find that for donations supporting ongoing causes, a multiple-time strategy receives more positive investor responses rather than a one-time strategy, indicating that the effect of a moral signal of persistent prosocial efforts released using a multiple-time strategy is greater than the effect of a financial signal of capital strength implied using a one-time strategy. Thus, we identify donation frequency as a critical implementation and communication channel that affects investors’ subjective interpretations of corporate donation initiatives.

2. Theoretical Background

2.1. Corporate Donation and Investor Responses

Prior research documents that corporate donation has a positive influence on investors’ judgments and decisions. For example, Iatridis [29] manifests that corporate donation positively affects investor perceptions and furthers firms’ future prospects and values. Other studies show that firms’ engagements in donations can mitigate the risk of a stock price crash [30] and weaken the negative influence of brand crisis on abnormal stock returns [31], both indicating investors’ positive responses to corporate donation. In the broader domain of CSR, many studies also find that investors respond positively to CSR [32,33,34]. For instance, two recent studies manifest that when CSR performance is positive, investors who do not explicitly assess the CSR performance estimate a higher firm value than investors who do explicitly assess, suggesting that CSR has an unintended impact on investor judgments [33,35]. However, some research finds inconsistent results. For example, Krüger [36] finds a weakly negative investor response to positive CSR events and argues that investors perceive CSR as a way to greenwash a history of poor stakeholder relations. Other research concludes non-responsive findings. Using the melamine contamination incident in China as a natural experiment, Wang et al. [37] do not find any effect of CSR performance on individual investors, either before or after the event. Similarly, Cho et al. [38] suggest that CSR disclosure is not positively valued by investors.
Overall, empirical research concludes a small but positive effect of corporate donation on investor judgments [39]. However, although investors value firms’ donation efforts, corporate donation is not always an effective business strategy that brings positive investor responses and further improves corporate financial performance. Therefore, firms should be interested in understanding what are the more effective ways to implement donation initiatives so as to boost investors’ favorable responses.
However, research on how investors respond to different donation strategies is limited. Arco-Castro et al. [40] indicate that investors respond positively to structured donation (i.e., independent management donation via a foundation), in preference to discretionary donation, and assured (vs. unassured) donation is more favored. In the broader domain of CSR, Johnson et al. [41] show that when a firm primarily uses an operational change strategy instead of an offsets strategy to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, investors perceive the firm to be more valuable. Other studies [42,43,44] examine how CSR disclosure strategies, not CSR implementation strategies, affect investors’ judgments about firms.
Prior research in marketing has identified a number of variables for firms to consider when making donation strategies, including the amount of donation [45,46], the type of donation (for example, cause-related marketing vs. cash and time vs. money) [6], the proximity of donation [4,47,48], and the frequency of donation [5,49]. Inspired by one of the studies, Jin and He [5], we examine how investors respond to different donation frequency strategies.

2.2. Donation Frequency Strategies and Investor Responses

Research in psychology indicates that people use frequency-related information to make judgments and decisions (see Zacks and Hasher [50] for a review). People instinctively ask questions about event frequency (e.g., how many times? how often?) and use the answers as evidence for decision making associated with an event. In the accounting and finance literature, some studies also find that frequency has an impact on investor decisions. For example, Koonce and Lipe [51] explore how firms’ benchmark-beating performances affect investor judgments, and they find that the frequency of the beats has a positive effect on investors’ stock valuation of the firm, and this positive effect is incremental to the effect of the magnitude of the beats. Tang and Venkataraman [52] indicate that the frequency in which firms provide earnings guidance positively affect investors’ confidence and likelihood to invest. Hutton and Stocken [53] also provide evidence that investors react more strongly to a current guidance when the guidance is preceded by a history of frequent (vs. infrequent) guidance. Based on these findings, we argue that donation frequency will have an impact on investors’ responses; their responses to one-time and multiple-time donation strategies will be different.
Achievement attribution theory [54] provides a useful framework that can help understand the theoretical underpinnings of the two donation strategies and predict under which strategy investors’ responses will be more positive. According to this theory, an individual’s goal attainment can be attributed to two main causes, i.e., ability and effort. Ability reflects the resources that one can allocate to achieve a goal [55], while effort indicates one’s commitment and persistence to achieve the goal [56]. Both ability and effort are important for goal attainment; however, people’s attribution to success can be different in some cases. For example, people usually perceive products or services to be better or as having higher quality if they are from large (vs. small) firms because they assume that large firms have the ability to continuously invest in their products or services. In other situations, people may favor an “underdog” firm when it demonstrates persistent effort to counterbalance its insufficient ability [5].
To this end, the two donation frequency strategies can be differentiated based on the signals that reflect firms’ achievements in meeting charitable goals. As mentioned earlier, in this study, we focus on the most prevalent donation projects that support an ongoing cause (e.g., education improvement, healthcare improvement, and poverty alleviation), which need long-term commitment and effort. For a multiple-time strategy, donations are small amounts but frequent. Frequency information (i.e., how often) is usually used to infer one’s goal commitment [5]. For example, people tend to infer that those who frequently go to the gym are more willing to exercise and are committed to bodybuilding [57]. Thus, the repeated donation behaviors signal to investors the firm’s continuous persistence and effort, which indicate that the firm is committed to attain the target charitable goals. The nature of a multiple-time donation strategy is aligned with the charitable goals to support ongoing causes. The strategy–cause fit will drive stakeholders’ inferences that the firm is altruistic and socially responsible [58], making them believe that it is more likely to achieve actual effects on targeted beneficiaries. The resulting positive perception and good impression will induce more positive stakeholders’ responsive behaviors—e.g., increased product purchases, enhanced employee productivity, and increased investment in firms [13,26,59]—and ultimately improve the firm’s financial performance. Alternatively, a one-time strategy sends signals about the donating firm’s resources and ability to attain charitable goals, which are less relevant to long-term persistence, effort, and commitment [5,60]. Thus, the signals show a relatively lower level of strategy–cause fit with ongoing causes, compared to a multiple-time donation strategy. Based on this line of reasoning, investors will be more optimistic about firms’ future EPS when firms adopt a multiple-time donation strategy.
However, for investors who pursue financial returns, firms’ abilities and resources are also important factors to consider when making investment judgments. A one-time large amount of donation, especially cash donation, reflects a firm’s financial strength. It conveys two financial-related signals to investors that the firm has sufficient cash flows and that the firm is confident about its future earnings [61]. These signals demonstrate the donating firm’s slack resources and good financial performance. Cash donations are costly in an intuitive manner because firms directly take out cash that they could have used for their own but instead donate it to unrelated third parties. Research shows that firms making a large amount of donations have excess current period financial resources [62] and low riskiness of future cash flows [63]. Although the donation amount is the same for the two strategies, firms will be perceived to be less financially constrained when donating a one-time large amount than when donating multiple times. From this perspective, investors would expect more optimistic future EPS when firms adopt a one-time donation strategy.
Based on the above discussion, we are still uncertain as to which donation strategy will make investors more optimistic about a firm’s future EPS. Thus, we put forward the following two opposing hypotheses:
H1a. 
When the total donation budget is controlled, a multiple-time donation strategy will lead investors to forecast a higher EPS than a one-time donation strategy;
H1b. 
When the total donation budget is controlled, a one-time donation strategy will lead investors to forecast a higher EPS than a multiple-time donation strategy.
Since H1a and H1b serve as the premises to further explore the underlying mechanism of investor responses to different donation frequency strategies, we first conduct an experimental study (Study 1) to test these hypotheses. Based on the results of Study 1, we continue to discuss the other hypotheses regarding the underlying mechanism (i.e., H2a, H2b, H3a, and H3b).

3. Study 1: Investor Responses to One-Time and Multiple-Time Donation Strategies

3.1. Method

Study 1 conducted a one-factor (donation frequency strategy: multiple-time vs. one-time) between-subject experiment. A total of 224 MBA students (99 females; mean age = 33.05, SD = 5.76) volunteered to participate through online channels (MBA students were recruited by professors who teach MBA courses at major universities in China. These professors helped distribute our online experiment links through their MBA student groups managed on the platform WeChat, which is the largest social networking app in China. The online experiment link (either multiple-donation condition or one-time donation condition) was randomly assigned to a professor. During the data collection process, we tracked the sample sizes to ensure a minimal difference between the sample sizes of the two donation conditions). Like prior research [32,33,35,43,64], we used MBA students as proxies for nonprofessional investors. By comparing the responses (financial analysis and investment-related judgments) of MBA students and nonprofessional investors through experiments, Elliott et al. [65] proved that MBA students are a good and reasonable proxy for nonprofessional investors. They possess basic accounting and investing knowledge and therefore fit the criteria of nonprofessional investors [66]. In this experiment, participants had an average of 4.4 years of work experience in accounting and finance and had taken an average of 5.6 courses in accounting and finance. Approximately seventy-eight percent of participants had previously invested in common stocks, and ninety percent either had invested or planned to invest in common stocks in the future.
Taking on the role of an investor, each participant was asked to forecast a company’s EPS. All participants read information about XYZ Inc., a hypothetical Chinese public company in the household appliance industry, with its major business sectors including consumer appliances, HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning), robotics and automation systems, and digital business. They were first informed of background information about the company, including a brief description of the company’s main business, actual EPS for the past three years (including a graphical presentation of the actual EPS for the three years), and selected financial statement information (see Appendix A). Specifically, the actual EPS in the past three years were CNY 0.77, CNY 0.85, CNY 1.05, which presented a continuously increasing trend (in this paper, only one possible EPS trend is considered, i.e., the continuously increasing one, and the actual EPS for the past three years are all positive (above zero); we selected this EPS trend because it is common for donating firms). Following the background information, participants were told that according to an authoritative third-party report, XYZ Inc. made some cash donations to the China Education Development Foundation for construction of smart campuses and high-quality educational resources in the most recent year. In the multiple-time donation condition, participants read that XYZ Inc. had consistently donated CNY 500,000 on 12 occasions in the recent year. In the one-time donation condition, participants read that XYZ Inc. had donated a lump sum of CNY 6,000,000 in the recent year. After reading the above information, participants were asked to expect the extent to which Y4’s actual EPS would be different from Y3’s actual EPS (see Appendix B). After completing the task, participants also needed to complete a post-task questionnaire, including manipulation checks (see Appendix B) and background information questions.

3.2. Results and Discussion

Manipulation check: The participants in the one-time donation condition perceived more strongly that the total amount of the target firm’s donation was larger (M = 4.83, SD = 1.04) than those in the multiple-time donation condition (M = 3.59, SD = 1.23), F(1, 222) = 65.50, p < 0.001. Meanwhile, the participants in the multiple-time condition perceived more strongly that the firm donated more frequently (M = 5.16, SD = 1.10) than those in the one-time condition (M = 3.12, SD = 1.19), F(1, 222) = 177.76, p < 0.001.
EPS forecast: One-way ANOVA was performed to test the main effect of donation frequency strategy on investors’ EPS forecasts. Before an ANOVA is performed, we first analyze whether demographic variables that may influence investor responses to corporate donation vary across different donation strategy conditions. Untabulated t-tests and chi-square tests present that no significant differences exist between our two experimental conditions for gender, age, years of work experience in accounting and finance, number of accounting and finance courses taken, experience in stock investment, or plans to invest in the future (all p-values > 0.10). The result of the ANOVA, as shown in Table 1, reveals that the participants in the multiple-time donation condition forecast a higher EPS (M = 2.19, SD = 1.50) than those in the one-time donation condition (M = 1.38, SD = 1.89), F(1, 222) = 12.76, p < 0.001. Thus, H1a is supported.
Discussion: Study 1 provides evidence that when the total donation budget is controlled, a multiple-time donation strategy leads investors to be more optimistic about a firm’s future earnings prospects (i.e., forecast a higher EPS) than a one-time donation strategy. This finding may support our theory that the strategy–cause fit between a multiple-time donation strategy (which signals the donation firm’s long-term effort-based commitment) and an ongoing cause induces investors’ more positive and/or less negative attributional inferences about the firm’s donation motives, which in turn lead to more positive responses. We propose that investors’ attributions to donation motives play a role in their responses to different donation frequency strategies.

3.3. The Roles of Bidirectional Motive Attributions

People are less inquisitive about what others are doing than why they are doing it [8]. Attribution theory [9] regards individuals as “intuitive psychologists” and proposes that an observer forms his/her attitudes or responses toward other actors based upon his/her perceived motives behind the actors’ behaviors. As attribution theory predicts, investors’ attribution of a firm’s donating behavior may be a key factor in determining the relative effectiveness of multiple-time versus one-time donation frequency strategies. The motives that individuals attribute to a firm for its charitable donations can be complex [1,21]; however, in general, they are divided into two types along a continuum: altruistic motives for social wellbeing and egoistic motives of self-interest [1,15,16,67].
In fact, the attributions of corporate donation motives are not simple bipolar judgments of purely altruistic or purely egoistic. Although altruistic and egoistic attributions are in opposite directions, they may coexist [1,21]. On the one hand, since firms are basically profit-seeking entities, people are unlikely to believe purely altruistic motives even in philanthropic activities such as charitable donations [68]. On the other hand, people are also unlikely to believe purely egoistic motive since charitable donations, especially cash donations, at least indicate that firms are giving resources they could have used themselves to unrelated third parties. Existing research has begun to measure motive attribution induced by CSR (including corporate donation) from two dimensions, i.e., altruistic and egoistic. For example, in the field of human resource management, Vlachos et al. [16] examine the role of CSR-induced attribution in how charismatic leadership affects employees’ job satisfaction from both intrinsic (altruistic) and extrinsic (egoistic) dimensions. Similarly, Lin et al. [20] explore the roles of the two attributions in mediating the relationship between organizational CSR climate and employees’ organizational commitment. In the marketing field, some studies [17,69] follow the same way to explore the roles of these two attributions in consumers’ responses to CSR. Other studies [13,21] even elaborate the role of motive attribution to four categories (i.e., value-driven, stakeholder-driven, strategic, egoistic); however, these attributions are actually a combination of altruistic and egoistic attributions to varying degrees. We call this measurement a bidirectional attribution measurement model. This model provides a feasible way to deal with the complexity of CSR motive attribution and can independently examine the different effects of each attribution on stakeholders’ behavioral responses. This study applies this bidirectional attribution model to address investors’ responses to CSR. Specifically, we measure investors’ altruistic and egoistic attributions in parallel under different donation frequency strategies to examine the different effects of bidirectional attributions on investors’ responses to corporate donation in terms of mediating mechanisms and behavioral responses.
Donation frequency can be an important predictor of stakeholders’ attributions for firms’ donation motives. Frequency of support is used by stakeholders to infer firms’ commitments to achieve charitable goals, which determines stakeholders’ perceptions of firms’ donation motives [70,71,72]. The higher the commitment, the more (less) a firm’s donation motive is perceived as altruistic (egoistic) [73]. Specifically, when a firm’s donation strategy presents its goal commitment, stakeholders are more likely to believe in the genuineness and benevolence of its involvement in donations, i.e., attribute more altruistic (less egoistic) motive to corporate donation behaviors [4,74]. As previously discussed, for donation projects that support ongoing causes, a multiple-time strategy reflects a firm’s effort-based commitment to achieve charitable goals; however, a one-time strategy that reflects firms’ abilities and resources is less relevant to effort-based commitment. A long-term commitment is likely to indicate a “real” commitment [21], thus indicating altruistic motives. However, a one-time donation, especially for donation projects that support an ongoing cause, might be seen as a means of marketing to increase sales [68] and as a reactive response driven by a firm’s self-interest, thus suggesting egoistic motives. As such, we argue that a multiple-time donation strategy will induce investors’ more altruistic attributions, while a one-time strategy will induce more egoistic attributions.
Within the context of CSR, extensive research finds that stakeholders attribute motives to firms’ CSR behaviors, and these attributions influence how they then respond back to the firms. The research is mostly conducted from the perspective of other stakeholders such as consumers and employees [13,21,75], while the perspective of investors is rarely seen. However, it is reasonable to argue that investors will also be responsive to CSR (here, corporate donation) motive attributions. If investors perceive a firm’s donation motive as altruistic, so do other stakeholders. Altruistic attribution will elicit more positive responsive actions of other stakeholders, such as increased consumer purchases and employee productivity [21,75], which will, in turn, improve corporate financial performance. With awareness of the positive outcomes that will be generated by the altruistic attribution of other stakeholders, investors would be more optimistic about the firm’s future earnings prospects. Following the same logic, investors’ perceptions of egoistic motives would make them believe that the responsive actions of other stakeholders will be attenuated. Research shows that firms’ prosocial behaviors attributed to egoistic motives are followed by a reduction in purchase intention and employee trust in the firm [76,77]. As such, financial performance is expected to decline, thus weakening investors’ forecasts for the firm’s future earnings prospects.
Based on the above discussion, we predict that the multiple-time and one-time donation strategies will induce different investors’ attributions for the donation motive; their attributions, in turn, will influence their EPS forecasts. Specifically, we hypothesize:
H2a. 
When the total donation budget is controlled, a multiple-time (vs. one-time) donation strategy will induce more altruistic motive attributions;
H2b. 
When the total donation budget is controlled, a one-time (vs. multiple-time) donation strategy will induce more egoistic motive attributions;
H3a. 
Investors’ altruistic motive attributions will mediate between donation strategies and investors’ EPS forecasts;
H3b. 
Investors’ egoistic motive attributions will mediate between donation strategies and investors’ EPS forecasts.
It is worth noting that we by no means argue that a multiple-time (vs. one-time) donation strategy only leads investors to generate altruistic (vs. egoistic) attributions. Instead, we posit that the relative strength of investors’ attributions regarding the firm’s donation motive varies depending on whether the adopted donation strategies are multiple-time or one-time. Figure 1 provides the conceptual model discussed in this paper.
To test the above hypotheses, we conducted another experimental study (Study 2) based on Study 1. In Study 1, the charitable goal of the donation project was designed to support education improvement, while in Study 2, the charitable goal is set to support healthcare improvement. According to the Giving China 2017, 2018, and 2019 Annual Reports [24,78,79], education and healthcare are the two primary domains where firms engage in donations at present. Study 2 also varies the total donation amount and donation frequency. In addition to testing investors’ motive attributions to different donation strategies and the mediating roles of investors’ bidirectional attributions, Study 2 also aims to verify and increase the generalizability of what we find in Study 1, i.e., a multiple-time strategy will lead investors to forecast a higher EPS rather than a one-time strategy.

4. Study 2: The Mediating Roles of Investors’ Bidirectional Attributions

4.1. Method

The experimental design and procedure of Study 2 are similar to those of Study 1. A single-factor (donation strategy: multiple-time vs. one-time) between-subject design was conducted. A total of 332 MBA students (163 females; mean age = 32.26, SD = 5.63) were recruited (they did not participate in the experiment of Study 1). Data were collected online using the same method as that in Study 1. On average, these participants had 4.8 years of work experience in accounting and finance and had taken 5.4 courses in accounting and finance. Approximately 70% of the participants had invested in common stocks previously, and 94% had either invested or planned to invest in common stocks in the future.
As in Study 1, the participants in Study 2 were first informed of XYC Inc.’s main business, actual EPS for the past three years (including graphical presentation), and the selected financial statement information. Then, they were told that an authoritative third-party reported that XYZ Inc. made some cash donations to a non-profit charitable organization—Alzheimer’s Disease Chinese—to support drug development for Alzheimer’s disease in the most recent year. In the multiple-time donation condition, the information emphasized that XYZ Inc. had consistently donated CNY 400,000 on 20 occasions in the recent year. While in the one-time donation condition, the information emphasized that XYZ Inc. had made a one-time donation of CNY 8,000,000 in the recent year.
After reading the information, as in Study 1, participants were first asked to make an EPS forecast. Then, they were also asked to indicate their investment desirability (see Appendix B). This variable is added as investor responses to conduct robustness tests regarding how investors respond to the two donation strategies and why investors respond as they do. After completing the tasks, participants answered questions that measured their motive attributions for the two donation strategies. The items measuring altruistic and egoistic attributions stem from the work of Ellen et al. [21] and Vlachos et al. [80]. Participants expressed their level of agreement or disagreement (1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree) with the possible explanations for the donation described in the experiment. Specifically, three items were used to measure altruistic attribution (Cronbach’s α = 0.909): (1) the firm has a long-term interest in the society; (2) the firm feels morally obligated to help society; and (3) the firm is trying to give back something to the society. The higher a participant’s rating on these items, the higher the degree of his/her altruistic motive attribution. Four items were used to measure egoistic attribution (Cronbach’s α = 0.858): (1) the firm wants to get publicity; (2) the firm is taking advantage of the cause to help its own business; (3) the firm is taking advantage of the nonprofit organization to help its own business; and (4) the firm is taking advantage of the donation to win the favor of its customers. The higher a participant’s rating on these items, the higher the degree of his/her egoistic motive attribution. The measurement items for altruistic and egoistic motive are also presented in Appendix B. Finally, participants completed background information questions and manipulation checks.

4.2. Results and Discussion

Manipulation check: The participants in the one-time condition perceived a significantly larger donation size for the target firm’s donation (M = 4.89, SD = 1.14) than those in the multiple-time condition (M = 3.75, SD = 1.13), F(1, 330) = 83.32, p < 0.001. In contrast, the participants in the multiple-time condition perceived more strongly that the firm donated more frequently (M = 5.43, SD = 1.14) than those in the one-time condition (M = 2.86, SD = 1.23), F(1, 330) = 389.76, p < 0.001.
EPS forecast and investment desirability: In Study 2, we re-test the main effect of donation frequency strategy on investor responses, using both EPS forecast and investment desirability as dependent variables. One-way ANCOVA was used. Gender and years of work experience in accounting and finance are included as covariates because untabulated t-test and chi-square test show that participants in the two donation conditions vary in these variables (χ2(1, n = 332) = 4.80, p = 0.029; F(1, 330) = 3.28, p = 0.071). For other demographic variables (age, number of accounting and finance courses taken, experience in stock investment, or plans to invest in the future) that could have influences on investor responses to corporate donation, no significant differences exist between the two donation conditions (all p-values > 0.10). As shown in Table 1, the participants in the multiple-time condition forecasted a higher EPS (M = 2.63, SD = 1.32) than those in the one-time condition (M = 1.92, SD = 1.95), F(3, 328) = 15.10, p < 0.001. In addition, the participants in the multiple-time condition also indicated significantly higher investment desirability (M = 7.53, SD = 1.88) than in the one-time condition (M = 6.78, SD = 2.26), F(3, 328) = 11.06, p = 0.001. Echoing the findings of Study 1, these findings provide robust evidence that, for donation projects supporting ongoing causes, investors respond more positively to a multiple-time (vs. one-time) donation strategy.
Investor attribution: We average the three items used to measure altruistic attribution and the four items used to measure egoistic attribution, respectively, to form two composite indexes. The ANCOVA result of altruistic attribution reveals that investors’ altruistic attribution of the target firm’s donation motives between the multiple-time and one-time donation strategies are significantly different, F(3, 328) = 19.96, p < 0.001. Specifically, participants in the multiple-time condition induce more altruistic motive attributions (M = 4.64, SD = 1.15) than those in the one-time condition (M = 4.03, SD = 1.26). Therefore, H2a is supported. Moreover, The ANCOVA result of egoistic attribution reveals that the participants in the one-time condition have a stronger attribution of egoistic motives (M = 4.67, SD = 1.66) than those in the multiple-time condition (M = 4.09, SD = 1.19), F(3, 328) = 17.81, p < 0.001, thus supporting H2b. The detailed statistics are reported in Table 1.
Mediation effect: H3a and H3b predicted that the relationship between donation frequency strategy and investors’ EPS forecast is mediated by their bidirectional motive attributions. The mediating effects are tested using a PROCESS Macro Model 4 [81]. Donation strategy, i.e., our independent variable, is coded as 0 = one-time donation strategy and 1 = multiple-time donation strategy; egoistic attribution and altruistic attribution are set as two parallel mediators; and an investor’s EPS forecast is set as dependent variable. Gender and years of work experience in accounting and finance are included as covariates. Additionally, the prior literature indicates that individual differences in perceived importance of social goodwill influence how stakeholders respond to corporate donation [82,83]. Thus, this variable is also considered as a covariate in mediation analysis. We measured participants’ perceived importance of social goodwill in background information questions (see Appendix B). The results of the mediation analysis are shown in Table 2.
Echoing the analyses from H2a and H2b, a multiple-time strategy is found to induce more altruistic attributions than a one-time strategy (β = 0.5477, t = 4.16, p < 0.001), and meanwhile, a multiple-time strategy induces less egoistic attributions than a one-time strategy (β = −0.5523, t = −4.21, p < 0.001). Stronger attributions of altruistic motive in turn result in investors’ higher EPS forecasts (β = 0.2046, t = 2.65, p < 0.01). However, egoistic attribution is not predictive of investors’ EPS forecasts (β = −0.1039, t = −1.34, p = 0.1804). The indirect effect of altruistic attribution is significant, β = 0.1121, not including zero at 95% CI, LLCI = 0.0077, and ULCI = 0.2398, while the indirect effect of egoistic attribution is not significant (β = 0.0574, 95% CI, LLCI = −0.0296, ULCI = 0.1531). In addition, the direct effect of donation strategy on investors’ EPS forecast is also significant, β = 0.4985, LLCI = 0.1238, ULCI = 0.8729, and t = 2.62, p < 0.01. As such, altruistic attribution plays a part in the mediating role between donation strategy and investors’ EPS forecasts, while egoistic attribution does not. Thus, H3a is supported and H3b is not.
We also conduct a robustness test of the mediating roles of altruistic/egoistic bidirectional attributions between donation strategy (multiple-time vs. one-time) and investor response. We repeat the mediation analysis with investment desirability as the dependent variable. The results (see Table 3) are similar to those using EPS forecast as the dependent variable. With altruistic and egoistic attributions in the model as mediators, the indirect effect of altruistic attribution is significant, β = 0.1457, not including zero at 95% CI, LLCI = 0.0223, and ULCI = 0.3101, while that of egoistic attribution is not (β = 0.0198, 95% CI, LLCI = −0.0811, ULCI = 0.1333). At the same time, the direct effect of donation strategy on investment desirability is still significant (β = 0.5204, LLCI = 0.0566, ULCI = 0.9842, t = 2.21, p = 0.0280).
Discussion: By varying the donation project designed in Study 2, the results, again, reveal that for donation projects that support ongoing causes, investors respond more positively (i.e., give a higher EPS forecast or indicate higher investment desirability) to a multiple-time (vs. one-time) donation strategy. More importantly, Study 2 shows that investors’ altruistic motive attribution mediates the observed effect of donation frequency strategies on investor responses, supporting the proposed underlying mechanism. Nevertheless, the proposed mediating effect of egoistic motive attribution is not supported. This finding might be explained by the following reason. As stakeholders who are driven by financial and moral motives [84], investors may not necessarily view egoistic motives as negative or opposed to altruistic motives. Egoistic motives that only consider the self-interests of a firm may cater to investors’ needs in pursuit of financial returns to some extent.
Further, it is worth noting that investors’ greater altruistic (egoistic) motive attribution for a multiple-time (one-time) donation strategy is only relative but not absolute. For a certain donation strategy, though investors’ attribution to one motive (i.e., either altruistic or egoistic) is greater, they do not rule out attribution to the other. As indicated in Table 1, in the multiple-time donation condition, participants rated an average of 4.09 for egoistic attribution. Questions about participants’ motive attributions were measured using Likert’s seven-point response scale, where 1 is strongly disagree, 7 is strongly agree, and 4 is neutral. The egoistic attribution rating of 4.09, although not statistically different from the median 4 (t = 0.923, p = 0.358), shows a trend suggesting that investors do not believe that a multiple-time donation strategy has no egoistic motives. Similarly, in the one-time condition, a rating of 4.03 for altruistic attribution (see Table 1), while not significantly different from the median 4 (t = 0.344, p = 0.731), shows a trend implying that investors do not believe that a one-time donation strategy has no altruistic motives. Put simply, regardless of the donation strategy, investors tend to believe that a firm’s donations have both altruistic and egoistic motives; however, the relative strength of altruistic or egoistic motive attribution is different, depending on whether the adopted donation strategy is a multiple-time or one-time donation.

5. Conclusions

In summary, our research unveils crucial insights into the interplay between corporate donation strategies, investor judgments, and motive attributions. First, we experimentally examine how and why investors’ judgments about firms are affected by firms’ donation frequency strategies, holding constant the total donation amount. We find that for donation projects supporting ongoing causes, a multiple-time donation strategy leads investors to make more optimistic judgments about a firm’s future earnings prospects and indicates higher investment desirability than a one-time donation strategy. Second, using a bidirectional attribution measurement model, we also find that investors attribute both altruistic and egoistic motives for different donation frequency strategies; however, the mediating roles of these two attributions are asymmetric. Altruistic attribution plays a mediating role in investor responses to different donation frequency strategies, while egoistic attribution does not. A multiple-time (one-time) donation strategy induces more (less) altruistic attribution, which, in turn, leads to investors’ more (less) positive responses.
Theoretical implications: We contribute to two streams of research. First, we advance research on CSR (including corporate donation) motive attribution by applying a bidirectional attribution measurement model in investors’ responses to corporate donation. Our findings show that motive attribution determines investors’ responses to different donation strategies. Specifically, investors believe that altruistic and egoistic motives coexist regardless of a multiple-time or one-time donation strategy, but only altruistic (rather than egoistic) attribution mediates investors’ responses. Second, we contribute to research on corporate donation strategic implementation by investigating donation frequency as a critical implementation and communication channel that affects investors’ subjective interpretations of corporate donation initiatives. By doing so, we also highlight the role of investors in corporate donation strategic implementation, where prior research mostly focuses on consumers and employees. This paper provides guidance for firms in developing effective donation and communication strategies and justifying their charitable expenditures.
Practical implications: First, firms should strategically select donation strategies. For donations supporting ongoing causes, emphasizing donation frequency could induce investors’ more altruistic attributions and thus enhance their responses. Reviewing the CSR reports of the top 100 Chinese listed firms that donated the most in 2018 (according to Giving China 2018 Annual Report [24]), we found that most firms focus more on emphasizing the total amount of donations rather than the frequency of donations. For example, Vanke, currently the largest professional residential development enterprise in China, in its 2019 CSR report emphasized a large single donation of CNY 120 million (about USD 18 million) to Shouning County for targeted poverty alleviation and rural revitalization. As aforementioned, the vast majority of corporate donations (about 75%) are used to support ongoing causes. Hence, a communication strategy that emphasizes the frequency of donations may add more value to corporate donation efforts. Our findings can guide the manner in which firms should implement donations and communicate their donations to investors.
Second, another important implication for managers emerges from investors’ attributions of corporate donation motives. For donation projects that support ongoing causes, the multiple-time donation strategy is superior, and altruistic motive attribution is the critical factor in effective communication with investors. Although investors believe that firms adopting a multiple-time donation strategy have more altruistic motives, they do not deny that the firms also have egoistic motives. Therefore, firms should be cautious in maintaining investors’ perceptions of their altruistic donation motives. Firms should not intend to persuade investors to believe that their donation motives are purely altruistic. No single donation strategy is a panacea. Even if firms implement an appropriate strategy, they should pay attention to the perceived motives of investors and communication with investors.
Limitations and future research: First, the study’s focus on ongoing causes reflects the prevalent context of corporate donations in China. However, this raises questions about the applicability of findings to disaster-related donations or other contexts. Thus, future research could explore how investors assess and respond to multiple-time and one-time donation strategies for donation projects supporting disaster causes, e.g., disaster mitigation and disaster relief. Investigating investor responses to disaster-related donations, despite their lower frequency, could offer insights into emotional dynamics and situational influence on perceptions.
Second, the mediating role of altruistic motive attribution in driving investor responses to multiple-time and one-time strategies is not indirect only. The indirect effect of altruistic motive attribution and the direct effect of donation frequency strategies on investor responses both exist. The significant direct effect suggests that there is still room for future work to look for omitted mediators [85] when explaining investor responses to different donation frequency strategies. This means that altruistic motive attribution is not the only mediator. For example, frequent corporate donations may induce investors’ more positive effect reactions and thus generates their more positive responses [33]. Thus, the role of omitted mediators in driving investor responses remains a topic for exploration, with a potential focus on affective reactions generated by frequent corporate donations.
Third, employing a bidirectional attribution measurement model, our findings suggest that, whether a firm adopts a multiple-time or one-time donation frequency strategy, while investors’ attribution to one motive (either altruistic or egoistic) is greater, they do not exclude attribution to the other. Although we offer some evidence for the complexity of investors’ donation motive attribution, this goal is difficult to prove by means of behavior experiments and questionnaires. Neuroscience may provide a solution. Using neuroscience techniques like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event-related potential (ERP) could provide a deeper understanding of the psychological processes underlying investor perceptions and attributions at the subconscious level, by observing human brain activities. Thus, future research could explore the neural mechanisms of investors’ motive attributions to justify the bidirectional attributions. Some studies have begun to use these techniques to explore the neural mechanisms of investor judgments and decisions [86,87]. Neuroscience experiments could advance and deepen our understanding of how psychological attribution processes determine investor responses to different donation strategies, thereby guiding firms to choose the “right” donation and donation communication strategies.
In conclusion, our research stands as a pivotal contribution to the study of corporate donation strategies and CSR (including corporate donation) motive attribution, offering valuable insights for academic research, corporate decision makers, and stakeholders invested in responsible business practices.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, Y.C.; Methodology, Y.C.; Validation, Y.C.; Formal analysis, Y.C.; Investigation, Y.C.; Resources, N.Y.; Data curation, Y.C.; Writing—original draft, Y.C.; Writing—review & editing, Y.C.; Supervision, N.Y.; Project administration, N.Y. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by Zhejiang Provincial Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Project (Grant No. 24NDQN173YBM) and Start-up Fund of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University (Grant No. 22092342-Y).

Institutional Review Board Statement

Ethical review and approval were waived for this study due to the absence of sensitive data and to the processing of data by ensuring confidentiality and anonymization of the personal information for all the subjects involved in the study.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy reasons.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Appendix A. Selected Financial Statement Information from the Past Three Years—XYZ Inc.

Income Statement Items
(CNY, in thousands, except per share amount)		Y3+/−
Y3/Y2		Y2+/−
Y2/Y1		Y1
Total revenue9,408,40612.61%8,354,8588.24%7,718,906
Total cost of sales5,780,93110.96%5,209,7713.70%5,023,887
Gross profit3,627,47515.34%3,145,08716.70%2,695,109
Operating expenses2,317,73714.04%2,032,37824.08%1,637,974
Operating income1,309,73817.71%1,112,7095.26%1,057,135
Interest payments80,4608.15%74,394−4.83%78,172
Taxes167,73113.68%147,5509.40%134,872
Net income1,061,54719.17%890,7655.53%844,091
      
Balance Sheet Items
(CNY, in thousands)		Y3+/−
Y3/Y2		Y2+/−
Y2/Y1		Y1
Total current assets6,734,5987.29%6,276,77612.38%5,585,252
Total assets9,389,04515.81%8,107,40410.55%7,333,445
Total current liabilities3,677,54320.03%3,063,8312.64%2,985,007
Total long-term liability31,25915.29%27,113153.84%10,681
Common stocks756,0640.00%756,063−0.01%756,130
Additional paid-in capital1,398,8546.08%1,318,6377.50%1,226,598
Retained earnings3,115,7597.67%2,894,76622.54%2,362,327
Total stockholders’ equity5,680,24313.23%5,016,46015.65%4,337,757
      
Cash Flow Items
(CNY, in thousands)		Y3Y2Y1
Net cash flow from operating activities1,738,9021,113,430621,052
Net cash flow from investing activities(786,489)(1,079,720)(350,356)
Net cash flow from financing activities(198,707)(234,095)(96,855)

Appendix B. Measurement Items Used in Studies (Studies 1 and 2)

Measurement ScalesReference/Note
Study 1
EPS forecastPlease indicate how much, if at all, you would expect the actual EPS for Y4 to change from the actual EPS for Y3?
(−5 = Expect a substantial DECREASE in the actual EPS for Y4, 0 = Expect NO CHANGE in the actual EPS for Y4, 5 = Expect a substantial INCREASE in the actual EPS for Y4)		Cianci and Kaplan (2008) [88]
Perceived frequency of donationsHow frequently did the firm make donations?
(1 = Not at all, 7 = Very frequently)		Manipulation check Jin and He (2018) [5]
Perceived amount of donationsTo what extent did the firm make a large-scale donation each time?
(1 = Not at all, 7 = Very large amount)		Manipulation check Jin and He (2018) [5]
Study 2
EPS forecastPlease indicate how much, if at all, you would expect the actual EPS for Y4 to change from the actual EPS for Y3?
(−5 = Expect a substantial DECREASE in the actual EPS for Y4, 0 = Expect NO CHANGE in the actual EPS for Y4, 5 = Expect a substantial INCREASE in the actual EPS for Y4)		Cianci and Kaplan (2008) [88]
Investment DesirabilityPlease judge the desirability of the firm as an investment.
(0 = Not at all, 10 = Very strong)		Koonce and Lipe (2010) [64]
Altruistic Motive
(α = 0.909)		1. The firm has a long-term interest in the society Ellen et al. (2006) and Vlachos et al. (2009) [21,80]
2. The firm feels morally obligated to help society
3. The firm is trying to give back something to the society
(1 = Strongly disagree, 7 = Strongly agree)
Egoistic Motive
(α = 0.858)		1. The firm wants to get publicityModified from Ellen et al. (2006) [21]
2. The firm is taking advantage of the cause to help its own business
3. The firm is taking advantage of the nonprofit organization to help its own business
4. The firm is taking advantage of the donation to win the favor of its customers
(1 = Strongly disagree, 7 = Strongly agree)
Perceived frequency of donationsHow frequently did the firm make donations?
(1 = Not at all, 7 = Very frequently)		Manipulation check Jin and He (2018) [5]
Perceived amount of donationsTo what extent did the firm make a large-scale donation each time?
(1 = Not at all, 7 = Very large amount		Manipulation check Jin and He (2018) [5]

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Sustainability 15 15392 g001
Figure 1. Conceptual model.
Figure 1. Conceptual model.
Sustainability 15 15392 g001
Table 1. Summarized descriptive statistics in each donation strategy condition and results of the ANOVA (Studies 1 and 2).
Table 1. Summarized descriptive statistics in each donation strategy condition and results of the ANOVA (Studies 1 and 2).
One-Time Donation StrategyMultiple-Time Donation Strategy
M [SD]M [SD]F-Statp-Value
Study 1n = 101n = 123
EPS forecast1.38 [1.89]2.19 [1.50]12.76<0.001
Study 2n = 169n = 163
EPS forecast1.92 [1.95]2.63 [1.32]15.10<0.001
Investment desirability6.78 [2.26]7.53 [1.88]11.060.001
Altruistic attribution4.03 [1.26]4.64 [1.15]19.96<0.001
Egoistic attribution4.67 [1.66]4.09 [1.19]17.81<0.001
Table 2. Mediating effects of altruistic/egoistic bidirectional attributions (EPS forecast as dependent variable).
Table 2. Mediating effects of altruistic/egoistic bidirectional attributions (EPS forecast as dependent variable).
ModelParametersβLLCIULCIp-Value
Path a1(X → M1)0.54770.28870.8067<0.001
Path b1(M1 → Y)0.20460.05280.35650.0084
Path a2(X → M2)−0.5523−0.8105−0.2941<0.001
Path b2(M2 → Y)−0.1039−0.25630.04840.1804
Path c(X → Y)0.49840.12380.87290.0093
Mediation Path 1a1*b10.11210.00770.2398
Mediation Path 2a2*b20.0574−0.02960.1531
Total Mediation Effecta1*b1 + a2*b20.16950.03030.3348
X = donation strategy; M1 = altruistic attribution; M2 = egoistic attribution; and Y = EPS forecast. Gender, years of work experience in accounting and finance, and perceived importance of social goodwill are covariates.
Table 3. Mediating effects of altruistic/egoistic bidirectional attributions (investment desirability as dependent variable).
Table 3. Mediating effects of altruistic/egoistic bidirectional attributions (investment desirability as dependent variable).
ModelParametersβLLCIULCIp-Value
Path a1(X → M1)0.54770.28870.8067<0.001
Path b1(M1 → Y)0.26610.07810.45410.0057
Path a2(X → M2)−0.5523−0.8105−0.2911<0.001
Path b2(M2 → Y)−0.0358−0.22440.15280.7090
Path c(X → Y)0.52040.05660.98420.0280
Mediation Path 1a1*b10.14570.02230.3101
Mediation Path 2a2*b20.0198−0.08110.1333
Total Mediation Effecta1*b1 + a2*b20.16550.01260.3573
X = donation strategy; M1 = altruistic attribution; M2 = egoistic attribution; and Y = investment desirability. Gender, years of work experience in accounting and finance, and perceived importance of social goodwill are covariates.
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Chen, Y.; Yang, N. Investor Responses to Corporate Donation Frequency Strategies: The Mediating Roles of Bidirectional Motive Attributions. Sustainability 2023, 15, 15392. https://doi.org/10.3390/su152115392

AMA Style

Chen Y, Yang N. Investor Responses to Corporate Donation Frequency Strategies: The Mediating Roles of Bidirectional Motive Attributions. Sustainability. 2023; 15(21):15392. https://doi.org/10.3390/su152115392

Chicago/Turabian Style

Chen, Ye, and Naiding Yang. 2023. "Investor Responses to Corporate Donation Frequency Strategies: The Mediating Roles of Bidirectional Motive Attributions" Sustainability 15, no. 21: 15392. https://doi.org/10.3390/su152115392

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